


Give me the drug you know I'm after

by crookedspoon



Series: I never liked that ending either [3]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Boys Kissing, Friendship, Internalized Homophobia, Joseph Kavinsky Lives, M/M, Minor Joseph Kavinsky/Ronan Lynch, POV Joseph Kavinsky, POV Second Person, Rejection, Scars, Suicide Attempt, Unrequited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-23
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2019-01-22 02:06:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12471072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crookedspoon/pseuds/crookedspoon
Summary: You put your hand on top of Proko's as soon as he's done reapplying your bandages, and you gather your courage. When he lifts his face to yours, you do it. You kiss him.





	Give me the drug you know I'm after

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jbird181](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jbird181/gifts).



> For Day #22 "Scars" at Kinktober and #22 "Lost" at Inktober for writers.
> 
> Another one of those ideas I've been carrying around for months now and which feel so weird in writing. Not kinky. Not even sure if it makes sense.
> 
> Jay, I feel like I have to apologise for always gifting you the angsty stuff. And to those who already read the first draft, I'm sorry as well. I rewrote the ending, because it didn't fit with the tone of the rehab au. Seriously, I shouldn't be allowed to write. Someone take my keyboard away.

There's nothing more horrifying about attempting suicide than to find consciousness at the other end of the blackness.

Waking up again is a testament to your failure. Congratulations, loser, you're still alive. Better luck next time.

You didn't think the next time would be long in coming. You had nothing to live for after the only person you ever wanted to hang out with – the only person who was _like you_ – rejected your ass, and you royally screwed up any chance you could have had with him, given enough time.

Though that would possibly have required more patience and insistence on your part than you had available. Sure, you had a never-ending supply of insistence, but patience? Yeah, not so much. You've pretty much used it all up during the months you'd been observing him, when you were busy hatching all the fun plans you'd be carrying out together once he joined you.

Some pies in the sky those turned out to be.

God, you don't wanna think about it. The physical pain you're experiencing doesn't hold a candle to that. You put yourself out there and got shot down brutally. That bullet must still be lodged somewhere inside you because there's a hole in your chest that's never gonna heal.

So why don't you just bleed out already, get it over with?

Nothing holding you back anymore.

Except there is, there's Proko, that useless piece of shit, sitting by your bedside and holding onto your hand through the worst of it, as if he could physically keep you from leaving. And so you don't go, as if you can't, as if you're tied to him, like a dumb balloon that's straining for the sky, but is wound around his wrist so it won't fly away by accident.

Fucking shit.

You've always thought you're way too robust for that frail skeleton that carries you around. Or perhaps not that frail. It can take quite a beating, both physically and chemically. You know, you've tested it. This wasn't the first time you tried to sever yourself from your corporeal existence.

But your consciousness seems to be fond of nestling in this body of yours, because no matter how many times you overdose, you just can't get rid of it.

Perhaps this time wouldn't be quite as excruciating if – okay, this 'if' isn't tied to just one single condition. There are several that would make this easier to bear. The most immediate: you needn't have gotten yourself a souvenir.

You hiss as Proko's fingers stroke over your burns. He's applying ointment, and doing it reverentially enough, but your skin is so fucking sensitive even your lightest shirt is too much on the bandages that are wrapping your back and keeping said shirt from sticking to it.

You don't know how Proko can have so much patience, so much perseverance, to be be doing this every day, with the same amount of care. Okay, perhaps you've dreamed him that way, in which case, major fucking kudos to you for your foresight.

Not that it was enough.

You tremble under Proko's fingertips, first because the pain was a little much to bear, then because hypersensitivity set in. The softest brush over your scar tissue had you gasping, either from a sudden jab of pain or because it was turning the rest of your body to invertebrate mush. 

You suffered through it, as you did everything, gritted teeth, glaring eyes and all. You could handle a little pain. You could a few scars.

Even if they made you so vulnerable to his touch, you wanted him to continue stroking the rest of your skin.

This desire made you sick. The mere thought of Proko running his fingers down your arms, or down your chest, or your thighs, twisted your stomach up in knots.

You've already conceded one realization concerning another boy, you didn't need to continue here.

But you couldn't help yourself.

You've never been shown this much kindness, after all. Boo hoo, go cry to your mummy. Oh, right. Mummy's busy being a drunk-ass bitch and doesn't have time for you or your needy, neglected little shitstain of an existence.

Truth is, you've been starving for any kind of touch, so that even physical abuse feels like a boon. 

And here Proko is, blessing you with so much skin-to-skin contact that you're ready to cry like a fucking baby. In the beginning, you've wanted to cry because it hurt too much to feel good, but now? Now, you're overwhelmed with other feelings.

You put your hand on top of Proko's as soon as he's done reapplying your bandages, and you gather your courage. When he lifts his face to yours, you do it. You kiss him. Fuck, you actually kiss him.

Proko stays just like this for a moment, head tipped up, fingers curling around your hips, eyes blinking owlishly. He gives you just this moment of hope, this moment to feel whole and complete, like you could actually be right with the world again.

Then he breathes out, amused, fond, indulging even, but breaking the kiss nonetheless.

"K," he says, a little breathless and it would have sounded better if he hadn't raised his voice at the end like he was asking a question. Like you were doing something inadvisable and he was checking whether you were all right.

You're fucking all right, all right. At least you were, you have been, until just now.

"What—?" He breathes out that stupid laugh again and the hole in your chest is hurting more than the molten skin on your back.

You rest your forehead against his, scrunching up your face real tight. Ugh, God, this hurts. Not again.

His fingers wind around yours. "I'm flattered, K. I really am. But I..."

"Yeah, you don't have to say it. I already know."

Proko's fingers scratching the back of your neck are a special kind of torture, and so is his breath across your lips. "I'm sorry I don't swing that way."

Now it's your turn to laugh. 

It's all just so hilarious.

"You loved me once," you say, although it's more like a confidential whisper, as though no one else should hear. Not that it would matter. No one else would understand. 

"Are you running a fever?" Proko's knuckles brush your heated forehead and you lean into his touch. His fingers are blessedly cool. But not cold enough to shock-freeze your useless feelings for him.

"You told me so yourself," you insist, as if reminding him of it would bring it all back – would perhaps undo the past couple of months even, "but I pushed you away, said things that I'm not proud of and that I'd take back if I could."

Proko straightens, a bewildered look on his face. "That... never happened."

You're trembling now with the weight of your confessions.

You've never told this to anyone, because who could you tell, realistically? No one would have believed you. They would have thought you were tripping.

"You killed yourself that night. All because I said no." The irony of that is not lost on you, thanks a bunch. "Okay, probably more because I was an ass about it, but the result was the same."

"So why don't I remember this?" Proko demands. "I feel like I remember everything else. So why take that away from me?"

"You seriously have to ask?" Fuck, you never expected to have _that_ conversation. But then you never thought you'd ever want to kiss Proko, and that happened. Honestly, you need to get better at killing yourself or that shit's just gonna keep piling up. You're a class A shit magnet.

"Uhh, yeah? It's not as straightforward as you might think."

You snort. "Straight, right. That's it."

"You know what I mean, asshole."

"Unfortunately, I do." You let your head fall back into your nape and immediately regret it. Your hair is like needles on your skin and the sudden stretch upsets your wounds.

"So?" Proko rejoins. "I'm listening."

You sigh with every dramatic fiber of your being. You don't want to remember any of it, but perhaps Proko deserves to know. He's never going to be his old self again, because you took that away from him. You thought it would be a kindness, but was it?

So you look Proko dead in the eye.

"You confessed to me. I called you a disgusting faggot. You killed yourself because you couldn't live with that, I presume. Then I couldn't live with you having killed yourself and I dreamed you back to life. Without any feelings for me this time. I thought, as long as you're running around, going to classes and shit, I could forget this ever happened. And so could you. The end."

In reaction to that, Proko looks away from you, his expression anywhere from disgruntled to disappointed, perhaps disillusioned even.

"I thought it would be better for you if you didn't remember our last moments together," you elaborate, if grudgingly. "If you didn't remember that I couldn't love you back. At least, not then."

Proko shoots you a wry look. "And, what? Now that you can, you expect everything to go back to the way it was before I— _shit,_ I can't even say it. I thought I overdosed."

You sneer at him, because that line of thought is hitting way too close to home. "You did. I just never told you it was deliberate."

Proko takes it all in good humor. In too good humor, perhaps, because he starts laughing and it doesn't sound like he's going to calm down any time soon.

Or perhaps this isn't humor at all, but hysteria. Because it's all just hysterical, isn't it? It's all just another fucked up episode in a series of fucked up episodes that make up your life. Of course you'd fall for the only friend who's ever fallen for you, but who offed himself because he couldn't take you hating him for liking you. And now you like him but you remade him in a way that he can't like you, because you didn't want that, not back then.

Fucking hilarious, right?

You're not sure you'd even want things to go back to the way they were, with the chance at a do-over that this implies, because you're not sure you're in love in with him, even it seems that much more possible than when he confessed to you. Still, you don't think you'd be much more amenable to hearing it now than you were back then.

You'd probably still reject him, although you'd keep your tongue in check more this time, if only because you think you still wouldn't have been ready for it. Not for his words, and certainly not for thinking about what that might mean to you.

As if anyone could love you. Proko was just smitten with a projection of you, a half-image, something that hadn't been you at all, but a chemically enhanced version of you.

Sometimes, when you're thinking like this, you miss that version of you.

"Sorry, sorry," Proko chortles and presses his wrist to his mouth to stop laughing so much, "but that's some heavy poetic justice shit."

"Tell me about it, asshole." You try to sneer again because this development is really fucking you up, but then his fingers brush the sensitive skin of your shoulders, and all your muscles are melting, even those in your face.

Without taking his fingers off you, he knocks back the rest of the vodka you keep close at hand, for those times the morphine is not doing its job right.

He contemplates the bottle as he sets it down again, before he smirks at you.

Your muscles stiffen again when you feel his lips against yours.

"The fuck?" you mumble.

He shrugs. "Kissing's nice. It's a bit weird because it's you, but if it makes you feel better, I'm up for it."

"Fuck you, asswipe," you growl against his mouth, but you're not exactly willing to draw back just yet. "I don't need your goddamn charity."

"But you want it," he says with a grin he could only have learned from you. "So shut up and kiss me already."

This is dumb, you think. This isn't real. Then again, Proko hasn't been the real Proko since you've pulled him back from beyond the grave, but you've afforded him the status of the original and never questioned it.

So why should a little lie in the form of a kiss be that much different if he's offering it to you? Like it has ever meant anything to you before. And besides, it does make you feel better in a way, if only marginally.

It also makes you feel a lot of other things besides, as it usually does, but you're not exactly ready to acknowledge most of them yet, because this is _Proko_ for fuck's sake. You've never even looked at him twice before he so readily reapplied your bandages every day. 

Not that it has ever stopped you before. You've made out with plenty of girls you'd never met before and were ready to do plenty of other things besides. You didn't even have to look at them _once._

So maybe that's what you're doing, you're thinking of all the faceless girls of your past as you slide your hands under his shirt, of sun-soaked skin and a heated hood under your fingers, blades of grass sticking to you—

"Fuck," you curse when you land with your back on the floor, having rolled off the couch with Proko. Pain is swimming through you, making you unable to move.

"You okay?" he asks, looking down at you. He's a warm weight on top of you, but he's not quite as solid and warm as the weight you've had in mind.

You feel sick, and you hope he doesn't notice the uncomfortable tightness in your pants.

You just want to curl up and die again. Or die for real this time. Since you did such a poor job of it before.

"This is a shit idea," you groan once you're able to breathe again. You sling your arm over your eyes so you don't have to see him any longer. Perhaps that's gonna make it easier.

But you still feel him sitting on your thighs and fidgeting, because no matter what, he thinks you're broken and he doesn't know how to handle you.

That's why he kissed you. He didn't consider how much it'd hurt or confuse you; he only considered what it might do to you if you didn't get what you wanted. Like you're a petulant child who's going to throw a major tantrum.

Fuck, you are that. You were. You don't want to be that anymore.

You'd wondered why he'd let you kiss him when you couldn't even _consider_ doing the same for back then. Maybe if you had, he'd still be alive. It seems like such a small sacrifice now.

But it wasn't then. It would have meant accepting Proko's feelings, or at least acknowledging them. It would have meant losing face in front of everyone, especially yourself.

It would have meant the end of everything as you knew it. You couldn't have kissed him as thoughtlessly as you kissed girls.

Now, however, what have you got to lose now? You've already made the biggest mistake of your life. You can't do any worse.

You're sick of this shit. You're sick of everything.

You push Proko away, intending to storm off and do whatever, maybe wrap your car around the nearest tree, anything so you don't have to feel this anymore.

But he stops you, keeps you where you are.

"I know everything is shit right now," he says and forces your head into the crook of his shoulder. "I just want you to know that I'm here for you. No matter what it takes, okay?"

You bury your nose against his neck and cling to his shirt. It takes you a moment to notice that the dying moose sounds are coming from you. Fuck, shit, everything hurts, everything hurts so much and you don't have the first clue how you're supposed to go on living like this.

Proko says nothing, he just cradles your skull and brushes his thumb over the small of your back. 

You don't understand how he could still want you to be okay after everything you've done, how he could be your doing and not reflect your self-loathing back at you, how he could be your creation in the first place and remain untainted by your corrupting touch. 

Yet here he is, defying all reason from first to last.

When you dreamed him, you made him so he wouldn't have feelings for you anymore. And he doesn't, at that. But he still loves you. That is something you couldn't take from him.

Only, there's a small voice inside you that's wondering whether it might not have been an addition, after all. If you could erase his feelings for you, what is to stop you from adding unflinching loyalty to take their place? Then at least there'd be one person in the world who'd never turn their back on you.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Slow Chemical" by Finger Eleven.
> 
> Tumblr post for reblogging convenience can be found [here](https://crookedspoonfic.tumblr.com/post/166724577110/wip-week-day-2-canon-verse-wip).


End file.
